Business Limelight: Fighting is a family business

Thursday

May 11, 2017 at 5:35 PMMay 11, 2017 at 6:29 PM

Alex Barber

Foster’s Daily Democrat is starting a new business feature where, every week, we will profile a business in the Tri-City area. If your business would like to take part, please email Alex Barber at abarber@seacoastonline.com

For the inaugural Business Limelight, we’re looking at Nostos MMA at 38 Market St. in Somersworth. Nostos MMA is celebrating its third anniversary with an open house celebration Saturday. Owned by Ultimate Fighting Championship Lightweight contender Devin Powell and managed by his fiancée, Carol Linn Hawkins, Nostos MMA has been training Seacoast residents for years. They specialize in Brazilian jujitsu, boxing, kickboxing and wrestling, but also have equipment such as ellipticals, weightlifting and stationary bikes. For more information, visit www.nostosmma.com.

What do you do?

We train people to learn how to defend themselves and prep people for fights, although not everyone who comes through the doors will even take a fight. A lot of it is for the health benefits and just to have some sort of self defense under their belt and a place to get out some aggression. It’s mainly a conditioning and workout facility. We sometimes have people fight under our name. — Carol Linn Hawkins, manager

How did you get started?

I had a friend who was running a mixed martial arts academy called The Shop MMA. They were going through tough times and offered me the opportunity to run it. I jumped at the opportunity. — Devin Powell, owner

It was The Shop MMA before we took it over. Devin actually trained there. It was run by Bill Jones and Skip Libby. They had fun with it and it was awesome for what it was. I think one day they said ‘we can’t do this anymore.’ Rather than shutting down, they asked if Devin wanted to take it over, which he ended up doing. He closed down for like a week or so and revamped the entire place. — Hawkins

What helps the business?

I think (mixed martial arts) is a growing sport and will continue to grow. I think people will kind of get into it. I think after a big UFC card, we’ll get some people to come in the next week because they want to try it. We offer a whole free week for people. They’ll come in and realize maybe it’s not their thing, which is why we offer the free week before people commit to it to make sure it’s something that you like. Others come in and fall in love with it. — Hawkins

We’ve got a lot of people coming in. Some come in just because they want to meet me. Some have been interested to learn from someone who’s gotten to that top level of mixed martial arts. — Powell

What does Nostos mean?

'Welcome home.’ It was from the Trojan War. That’s what soldiers would say when they came back. — Hawkins

How does that make Nostos MMA feel like a family?

I think we have a lot more sense of family than a lot of gyms do. Like Sundays, we’ll have our really hard classes and everyone goes out to eat after. We’re all just kind of one big family. Even the people who just started, they’re welcome to come out and join the family. — Hawkins

What about the kids?

Devin’s always had a very big family, and he wants to extend that to everyone. That’s part of the reason we have kids classes. A lot of times we’ll have kids classes going on when we have an adult class, so the parents can do a class while the kids are doing a class. It kind of works to everyone’s advantage. We have a kids section with movies, games and stuff so they can play while the parents are taking a class. — Hawkins

How will you celebrate your three-year anniversary?

On Saturday, May 13, it’s going to be open-house style. We’ll have some condensed beginner versions of all our classes to have people come in and try it out to see if it’s something they’re interested in. All of our classes are go at your own pace. You can come in off the streets and not know anything and still be able to take the class. We’ll have four classes going on at once in 45-minute blocks. Then we’ll end the day with a belt ceremony. Everything’s free. — Hawkins